


Dreamscapes

by Legs (InsanityRule)



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M, Vague reference to child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 16:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12063075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsanityRule/pseuds/Legs
Summary: In an unfamiliar place in an unfamiliar time, Oswald finds himself in the company of a much smaller version of his partner.





	Dreamscapes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Doyle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doyle/gifts).



He finds himself in a single room with only one point of entry. No windows, just a cheaply made wooden door reminiscent of some of the less desirable parts of town Oswald tends to find himself when trying to get reliable henchmen. Seeing as the room he's in is empty Oswald goes to the door and opens it, swinging it open to reveal a long, dreary hallway with more cheap doors and wood paneling, some of which is beginning to rot from some apparent water damage.

“Charming,” Oswald says to himself. He continues down the hall and touches each door, but decides to leave each one shut as soon as he's felt the outside of the imitation oak. At the end of the hall there is a small living room, with only one place to sit and almost no decorations, and a small, huddling figure in the center, surrounded by vague, menacing things. Shapes Oswald can't fully make out but knows are a genuine great, and he storms into the room, brandishing his cane and dispatching the figures with a few powerful swipes.

He's alone with the boy at last. There's an overwhelming sense of familiarity and fondness, and Oswald hurries to kneel by the small, huddling form. Nearby there's a child sized pair of glasses, broken and unusable. Oswald produces a handkerchief and places a hand on the small, heaving shoulders of what must obviously be Ed, drawing his finger under his chin in order to wipe his face.

“I'd tell you you outgrow this sort of visceral reaction but I'm afraid to say it isn't true.” He mops up the rest of Ed's tears and sets the handkerchief aside. “Are you hurt?”

“My glasses are broken,” he tells Oswald, sniffling through his tears, hands wringing in his mussed shirt with anxiety.

Oswald reaches into the breast pocket of his waistcoat and pulls out a nearly identical pair, minus the cracks and splintered plastic. Tiny Ed marvels at him through the uncracked lenses, the too familiar road-weary sag to his eyes morphing into adoration.

“Now, since you didn't actually  _ answer  _ my question, I'll ask again, are you hurt?” Ed gets up from the floor and starts wandering out of the room without any explanation. “What a rude child.”

Although he's not sure Ed ever grew out of that either.

Oswald follows Ed down the previous hallway and pushes open a door at the end of the hall. The room itself is small, nondescript and fuzzy at the edges, with a small twin bed and a tiny bookshelf shoved into the corner by the closet. Ed is kneeling there, books already pulled from the shelf and open, surrounding Ed in a neat semicircle. Oswald sits just outside this literary barrier and watches Ed switch from book to book seemingly at random, flipping pages at equally erratic intervals.

“You’ve always liked to read,” Oswald says. Ed sits back on his heels and tilts his head to one side. “I know a few things about you, some of which I'm sure you aren't yet aware of.”

“Where'd you come from?”

“I’m from Gotham.” Ed’s tiny nose wrinkles up in dissatisfaction. “And so are you, if I’m not mistaken.”

Ed turns back to his books and starts tearing out pages at random. He balls each of them up and piles them up by his side. Then he goes back to reading, flipping through books with half their pages missing, and sometimes flipping a book backwards instead of forward.

“This isn’t really the witty banter I’m used to having with you.”

“I’m reading.”

“You’re actually destroying the books,” Oswald points out. Little Ed marches on. “I’m getting the impression you’re not going to agree with me.”

And then, out of the blue, he asks, “do you love me?”

Oswald blinks and when his eyes open again his Ed is crouched there, staring intently, and he blinks again, and young Ed is in his place. He’s still staring just as intently, just as hopeful and desperate.

Oswald nods. “Of course.”

Two voices demand more, the small, young Ed, and the deep, gravelly one from the past. There’s static, two sets of spectacled eyes glaring, a flash of a handgun pointed at Oswald’s stomach. “Even then?”

He nods. The overlapping images vanish and young Ed is left in the middle of the books, sniffling and snot nosed. He pushes his glasses up off his face and rubs at his eyes with his tiny fists.

Oswald reaches for him, and the instant his hand comes into contact with Ed’s arm he appears already bundled up against Oswald’s chest in a tight hug. He leans down and whispers to Ed, “if it’s any consolation I’m fairly certain you already knew that fact.”

Ed mumbles something, but Oswald can’t hear the words, and behind him he can hear sounds, thumping and angry words. He turns, still holding Ed to his chest, watching shadows move along the hall through the space under the wooden door. Tiny hands shove at him, and he releases Ed, unable to react as the boy cowers from the sound.

“Let me help you,” he says, but his voice sounds muffled in his ears. He reaches out, grasping Ed’s hand, smiling when the small fingers squeeze back, but the hallway door bursts open and great, hulking shadows sweep in, pulling Ed from his grasp with a cry of surprise. “No!”

He pushes himself up but he’s alone, and the door sucks shut behind the intruders. Oswald rushes over and pulls it open to reveal an unending hallway filled with closed doors, and as he rushes to each of them he finds the same small bedroom, still empty except for Ed’s ruined books.

-

He blinks, sucking in a quick breath and letting it out slowly when the ceiling of his bedroom comes into focus. The faint ticking of the wall clock and the soft scrape of pages turning are the only sounds in the room. Oswald turns towards the latter and sighs when he finds Ed sitting up on his half of the bed while he reads.

“Good morning,” Ed murmurs. “I had a riddle planned, but it was time relevant and you overslept.”

“Did you live in a trailer?” Oswald asks, and Ed closes his book without marking the page. He turns to Oswald with a curious expression and a single raised eyebrow. “Growing up, I mean. I’m aware your loft was definitely  _ not  _ a trailer.”

“If you mean an  _ actual _ trailer, then no, I did not.” He answers cautiously, still looking a bit lost. “Although the house was  _ next  _ to a trailer park. For all intents and purposes I suppose it was a glorified double wide, although we did have an unfinished basement. Why?”

“Hm, I suppose I always pictured it as one of those run down things with hideous wood paneling on every wall.”

Ed chuckles under his breath. “It was wallpaper, but it  _ was  _ rather hideous.” He sets the book aside and moves so he’s lying next to Oswald, one arm propped up to keep his head elevated. “This isn’t what I expected to hear when you woke up.”

“I had a dream about you.” Oswald folds his hands on top of his stomach and looks away from Ed, choosing to focus instead on the ceiling in Ed’s inner sanctum. “Little you, actually. I tried to be your knight in shining armor, if memory serves.”

Ed's hand moves across Oswald’s chest and laces with the fingers of his left hand. “As much as my young self would have appreciated the gesture, rest assured that you already are.”


End file.
